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According to the recently released results of the Cowen Group's Critical Trends Survey for the second quarter of 2010, 65% of corporate respondents and 69% of law-firm respondents say that legal project management has increased in importance.[1] Over 53 corporations and 117 "major law firms" participated in the survey. Hopefully this translates into the LPM job growth predicted by earlier Cowen Group surveys,[2] the Project Management Institute,[3] and The Posse List.[4]  [1] Cowen Group, 2010 Q2 Critical Trends Snapshop, http://www.cowengroup.com/researchcenter/quarterly/2010-Q2.php (last visited August 6, 2010). [2] Paul C. Easton, Cowen Group: It's a Hot Job Market for E-discovery Project...

According to a survey conducted by RecommindRecommind, an e-discovery-tool vendor, the disconnect between IT and legal is getting worse:  While legal and IT have been historically disparate, the exponential increase in content creation and the rising complexities and risks of eDiscovery and regulatory scrutiny have inexorably linked the needs and responsibilities of each department.... Recommind's survey reveals that communication between legal and IT has become decidedly worse in 2010.[1] It seems years of hand-wringing on this issue is doing little to move these two camps closer together. But, as I've discussed before, the growing trend of legal-project management provides our best...

The Cowen Group has just released a snapshot of its fourth annual salary survey for litigation support professionals and the job market for litigation-support project managers is looking strong.[1] Their salary findings support their predictions in their "Critical Trends" report, published in January, which noted the increasing need for litigation-support project managers, stating that the role "will gain greater prominence in the industry due to the increasing size of datasets and heightened concern around controlling cost, limiting risks, and guaranteeing  outcomes."[2] According to this survey, salaries are projected to increase by eight to fifteen percent. Unsurprisingly, salaries are highest in the Eastern...

The Project Management Institute's Project Management Salary Survey for 2009 was recently published and is now available for purchase at the PMI Web site.[1] The survey, "based on self-reported data from 35,000 project management professionals" from 19 countries, measures "salaries across eight major position description levels" and includes a number of key demographics, including work experience, PMP status, industry, department/function, and highest formal education level obtained. What, if anything, does it have to tell legal-project managers about their earning potential?  For this post I only looked at the Salary Survey Country Report for the United States. The U.S. Report draws upon data...

While folks have strong opinions about the worth of PMP certificates to employers,[1] it seems they bring value to the employees who hold them. According to the 2010 Global Knowledge/TechRepublic IT Skills and Salary Survey, salaries for PMP and other business-improvement and project-management certifications increased from 2009.[2] One interesting finding is that employers are increasingly looking for people possessing a good mix of business and process improvement skills. If you already have a PMP, the addition of Six Sigma credentials make you particularly marketable. Linda Leung, reporting on the survey for Global Knowledge, writes:  The average salary of this year's survey respondents who...

Liz Kurtz, in a recent article for Small Law, reports on the results of the University of Florida Levin School of Law's "2010 Perfect Practice Legal Technology Institute Study" (PP-LTI Study). Two findings from this study that stand out are:  Most small firms are not using document management systems (only 52% of all lawyers report using DMS and of those, 80% work in large law firms).Half of all small firms report that they do not use practice management systems.The reasons given for not adopting these technologies include:"if it ain't broke, don't fix it" - what they have is working fine...

Rees Morrison reports in his Law Department Management blog on a study that finds law firms have steadily allocated responsibilities lower.[1] This prompts Mr. Morrison to point out that "if the pattern has been for law firms to move work down the experience and cost ladder, it makes the increases in external legal costs over those years even more startling."It prompts me to question who is being allocated legal project management (LPM) responsibilities? It is no secret that the attorneys-(who-are-supposed-to-be-)in-charge tend to shuck off LPM duties, especially e-discovery management, to junior associates. Last summer the Sedona Conference called the legal community...

During my morning Google Alerts check, I came across a study that looks at the application of the Balanced Scorecard measurement system to legal departments. The article is titled Balancing Legal Scorecard - A Performance Management Tool for Corporate Excellence and is authored by Dr. R.Srinivasan, an associate professor at the Bharathidasan Government College for Women (Muthialpet, Puducherry, India).[1] The article defines a "Balanced Scorecard" as follows: The Balanced Scorecard (introduced by Kaplan and Norton) is a set of financial and non-financial measures relating to a company's critical success factors. It is an attempt to capture the essence of the organization's critical...